Civil & Criminal Asset Forfeiture

Northern California Criminal and Civil Forfeiture Law Attorneys

State and federal prosecutors often seize real or personal property and seek asset forfeiture from individuals believed to be profiting from illegal activity. Fiumara & Milligan Law, PC routinely defends clients and fights aggressively to protect their assets and property against unwarranted seizure by the authorities throughout Northern California.

Although we do handle criminal forfeiture cases, they are rare because they require a criminal conviction. Therefore prosecutors often choose to bring actions under civil forfeiture law in the majority of cases.

Criminal forfeiture requires:

A criminal conviction

That the assets or property have a sufficient relationship to the illegal activity

Civil forfeiture differs in that:

Civil forfeiture actions are not taken against the owner of the assets or property, but against the assets and property themselves

No criminal conviction is necessary, and in many cases there is not even a criminal charge against the legal owner of the assets or property

The government’s attorney must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the property in question has a sufficient relationship to illegal activity to justify forfeiture.

Most forfeiture cases are federal. California forfeiture statues are somewhat different and provide greater protection for owners of real and personal property in most cases.

Most individuals in the United States do not understand or are not even aware of how much power the government has to seize the assets and property of its citizens under civil forfeiture law. Our attorneys have helped hundreds of individuals regain their seized property.

If you are facing asset forfeiture proceedings for any reason, contact Fiumara & Milligan Law, PC today to learn how we can help. We have had a tremendous number of successes in protecting our clients’ interests in these cases.

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I rarely need an attorney but when I have, Michael has been very attentive to detail, hard working and imaginative. One time when other attorneys essentially refused the work, saying I should walk away from the issue, Michael and his team were able to find a solution to the problem with very positive results

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